The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach together handle 40 percent of the nation's import trade totaling $1 billion in cargo trade every day.

The employers said in a statement to ABC that the work stoppage has "harmful repercussions for tens of thousands of people whose livelihood in the port communities and beyond depends on the cargo moving through the ports."

"The 600 clerks involved in this strike -- the highest paid office clerical workers in America, and who have been offered absolute job guarantees and compensation boosts -- continue to put their own self-interests first," the statement said.

But union representatives fear that their jobs, which are mainly computer-based, will be sent to places with lower labor costs from Taiwan to Texas, reports the New York Times.

“Everyone can understand why big powerful corporations want to outsource as many jobs as they can, and pay workers as little as they can get away with,” Craig Merrilees, a spokesman for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, told the newspaper.

“Workers have drawn a line in the sand to try to take on powerful employers that are sending good jobs overseas and hurting lots of communities in the process.”